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Thinking of Going Green this Holiday?

December 13, 2011 in EcoCAR 2 News by ggguestuser | No comments

Image: Frits Ahlefeldt-Laurvig, Flickr

Trying to cut down on spending this holiday season? Why not try something different that can also help save the environment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a list of fun, environmentally friendly gift ideas and tips for the holiday season. Consumers can find Energy Star, Design for the Environment and Watersense labels on products to save energy, cut the costs of bills and most importantly, keep our environment protected.

When holiday shopping gets hectic, think of the simple ways we can relieve our stress and reduce our environmental impact: bringing cloth bags to save on paper and plastic, using recycled gift wrap, reusing old electronics, and using LED lights that require less energy. Take a look at the EPA website to see how these products can benefit your home and the environment.

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How dSPACE Tools Kept OSU EcoCAR on Track

July 26, 2011 in Sponsor Post, Team Posts by ggguestuser | No comments

The Ohio State University (OSU) EcoCAR team developed an Electric Range Extending Vehicle (EREV) that employs a dedicated E85 engine. Honda donated two identical 1.8L 4-cylinder compressed natural gas (CNG) engines to the team, which the team converted to run on E85 ethanol.  E85 has a higher octane rating than gasoline and is one of the approved fuels of the EcoCAR competition. The high octane rating of E85 allows it to run in the compressed natural gas engine, which is built for higher compression ratios that allow the engine to achieve higher efficiencies than a regular gasoline engine. One engine was set up in a dynamometer test cell with the other one in the vehicle. The two identical engines allowed the team to perform development in the dynamometer test cell and in the vehicle simultaneously in order to optimize the efficiency and emissions of the vehicle. Using the OSU-designed control system, the engine reaches peak diesel like efficiencies of 40% and a peak power of 100 kW.

As part of the competition, emissions testing took place at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory (NVFEL) from March 7-14, 2011. However, a mechanical failure of the engine in the dynamometer test cell left the team without a much-needed test platform for engine tuning before emissions testing took place.  The test data was needed to calibrate engine software for testing at the EPA.

Thanks to sponsor support from dSPACE and the chosen design architecture for the OSU vehicle, the team was able to quickly set up and perform the required engine testing in the vehicle. The OSU vehicle can couple its engine to the 82-kw Remy front electric machine without connecting the front powertrain to the wheels. The dSPACE ControlDesk software provides the calibration interfaces needed to perform engine tuning tests safely in the vehicle.  The team developed an experiment for in-vehicle dynamometer testing in dSPACE’s ControlDesk that allowed the tests to be conducted in the vehicle.  ControlDesk even allowed the dynamometer tools from ETAS, Vector, and Woodward that are usually used in the dynamometer test cell to still be connected to the system, thus making the transition to the temporary in-vehicle testing seamless.

In-vehicle engine test setup designed using dSPACE tools

The OSU team was able to ship their vehicle to the EPA facility for emissions testing. The dSPACE ControlDesk dynamometer set-up allowed the team to get back on schedule and fully prepare for emissions testing at the EPA, despite the hardware setback with the dynamometer engine.  The dSPACE ControlDesk tool is one of many software tools that helped the team remain on schedule to perform well in the final competition events in June 2011. OSU did so well in Finals that the team earned a 2nd Place Overall Finish!

The Ohio State EcoCAR team would like to say thank you to dSPACE Inc. for all their help throughout the three year EcoCAR competition. The team also focused their “Sponsor Series” on dSPACE Inc., where they interviewed Santhosh Jogi, Director of Engineering at dSPACE about his experience with EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge. You can watch the interview below!

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DOT and EPA Announce New Eco-Friendly Labels

May 26, 2011 in Green Auto News by ggguestuser | No comments

Yesterday Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood unveiled the EPA and Department of Transportation’s new fuel economy labels, which will help consumers pick the most wallet- and environmentally-friendly vehicles. In addition to gas mileage and electric-equivalent ratings, the new labels will estimate a vehicle’s five year fuel costs compared to an average new vehicle.

Consumers purchasing a fuel-efficient vehicle will be able to see how their choice will save them some serious cash over the long term, in addition to helping the environment. We can’t wait to see how much cost savings the technologies being used in EcoCAR today earn the green car consumers of the future!

Check out the video below to learn more about the EPA’s new labels:

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Ann Arbor Trip Crucial for The Ohio State Team

May 3, 2011 in EcoCAR News, Team Posts by ggguestuser | No comments

No, we’re not talking about football, we’re talking about emissions testing! After testing their vehicle at U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory during the Spring Workshop, The Ohio State EcoCAR team returned home with a benchmark status of how their vehicle was performing – and more work to do.

The Ohio State vehicle’s exhaust after treatment system features an electrically-heated catalyst with secondary air injection to enable the vehicle to pre-heat the catalytic converter before starting up the engine. This is beneficial for reducing cold start emissions. About 60-80% of vehicle emissions occur right after engine start-up before the catalytic converter is warmed up to its operating temperature. Pre-heating the catalytic converter eliminates the majority of these emissions. The OSU team was able to do a cold start test with and without the electrically-heated catalyst and found that the pre-heat strategy significantly improved their cold start emissions.

However, during emissions testing, data was showing unexpected oscillations in the vehicle’s exhaust gas flow rate. Upon further investigation, the team found that these dynamics were caused by the check valve between the engine exhaust manifold and the secondary air injection system. The valve is used to seal off the secondary air injection system from the rest of the exhaust system at all times except the pre-heat phase. There are two purposes for doing this: so that when the engine is running, no exhaust gas is able to backflow and damage the air injection pump, and also to prevent unexpected air to flow into the exhaust system, messing up the engine’s precisely-tuned air/fuel ratio control.

Through testing at EPA, The Ohio State team was able to identify this issue and replaced the passive check valve with an electrically-actuated valve that can be controlled on-demand by the engine controller. The team is now fine-tuning its vehicle in preparation for the competition Finals in June!

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Virginia Tech & EPA Rock the National Mall

April 22, 2011 in EcoCAR News, Team Posts by ggguest | No comments

Rain or shine, Earth Day events go on. Despite the gloomy forecast, Virginia Tech’s Hybrid Electric Vehicle Team (HEVT) drove more than four hours from Blacksburg to Washington D.C.’s National Mall to show off their EcoCAR at the EPA’s Earth Day events last weekend.

The EPA Earth Day tent housed “green” exhibits, including the Virginia Tech EcoCAR booth, as well as the 55 university teams competing for EPA’s P3 award. The P3—people, prosperity, and the planet—is a competition that provides funding for top collegiate sustainable design programs. Though Virginia Tech was not among the competitors this year, HEVT was honored to be exhibiting among future-forward ideas similar to the EcoCAR competition.

Saturday’s rain storm made for quite a mess, but there were still plenty of visitors at the HEVT booth. Visitors loved the team’s toy hybrid cars and were excited to talk about the vehicle and the competition. On Sunday, the skies cleared up and visitors were able to spend time with the VTREX and visit our table inside the EPA tent. It was exciting to talk to attendees of the EPA event as well as passers-by who were simply out to enjoy the sights of D.C.

Overall, the event was a huge success for HEVT since the team was able to reach not only EPA Earth Day supporters, but hundreds of other D.C. visitors and residents. Thank you to EPA for putting on such a great weekend!

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How Virginia Tech became the First Team to Finish Year 3 Safety Tech

April 7, 2011 in Team Posts, Video Blogs by ggguest | No comments

In Year Two, it took the HEVT team several days to get their VTREX vehicle through all aspects of the safety tech inspection. This year, however, the team used its experience to make the process as painless as possible. Prior to shipping the vehicle off to the Spring Workshop, HEVT ran multiple mock inspections that went through every requirement on the official inspection list. All this hard work paid off since the VTREX was the first of all sixteen teams to pass Safety Tech inspection at EPA, which allowed the car to get straight to emissions testing.

Every EcoCAR vehicle was required to pass all parts of the safety tech inspection before it could be driven in any road tests or approved for dynamometer testing. Key points of the EPA inspection include checking to make sure critical fasteners are torqued to the proper specifications, checking to ensure that wires and coolant hoses are properly secured and safe from potential damage or movement and checking the high voltage systems to ensure everything is correctly labeled and properly installed.

Check out the video below to see HEVT team member, Jesse Alley, walk through the key points of the safety tech inspection:

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Georgia Tech’s Tight Squeeze

March 30, 2011 in EcoCAR News, Team Posts by ggguest | No comments

Georgia Tech’s EcoCAR team had a great Spring Workshop, but the runup to the event was no picnic. For weeks leading up to the EPA testing, team members lost sleep getting the car back to life after two major issues threatened to sideline the vehicle.

First, electrical group members moved the Engine Control Module (ECM) into the new location where it would have less vibration, less wire clutter and less abrasion on the wiring conduit. The work seemed innocuous initially, but when they plugged the connectors back into the ECM and powered up the 12V disconnect, a fused popped, causing the vehicle to lose internal network communications and accessory power.

The team suspected the cause of the issue was wiring, so they spent two weeks stripping the conduits off the wiring harness, inspecting every wire going into the ECM, checking continuity in every pinout of the ECM connectors and reviewing the specification to see if any feature in ECM which would trigger this. They also shipped the ECM to General Motors for an inspection, but GM mentors informed the team that the component had no issues.

At a regular electrical group meeting only a few weeks prior to the Spring Workshop, the group was inspecting the new connectors GM had shipped when team member Carlos Cubero-Ponce ran in holding his laptop. He pointed at the schematic picture and revealed to the team’s shock that there was a simple answer to their electrical issue. The J1 connector was plugged in the wrong direction! Behind the pile of engineering documentations, the team had taken for granted that the connectors cannot be plugged in upside down.

Just days after resolving the ECM issue, Georgia Tech encountered another problem when an input shaft snapped off their 2-Mode transmission during testing. This required the team to replace the entire transmission, but luckily one arrived from GM without a day to spare. The team was able to make the proper adjustments to their vehicle and ship it off to the Spring Workshop just in the nick of time!

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Spring Workshop Ends on a High Note

March 18, 2011 in EcoCAR News, Video Blogs by ggguest | No comments

EcoCAR’s 2011 Spring Workshop came to a successful close today, as all sixteen teams finished up testing at the EPA facilities. In addition to comprehensive vehicle inspections, the two week workshop included a Ride & Drive event for local media as well as learning and networking opportunities for the student team members.

Teams will now focus on what they learned at the Spring Workshop as they race to complete their vehicles for the competition finals in June!

Take a look at this video to hear what students, administrators, and media members had to say about the event:

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Group B Gets a Shot at Dyno Testing

March 17, 2011 in EcoCAR News by ggguest | No comments

The second wave of student teams are wrapping up safety tech inspections and dynamometer testing at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Fuels and Vehicle Emissions Laboratory in Ann Arbor, MI.

After an impressive week of dyno testing with Group A, Group B teams Embry-Riddle, Missouri S&T, North Carolina State, Rose-Hulman, University of Victoria, University of Wisconsin, University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT), and West Virginia University had their turn.

“When coming to EPA, our team was looking forward to motor tuning testing in order to optimize performance and ensure another motor failure does not occur. We also wanted to perform a full battery depletion to determine our vehicle’s range,” said University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) team leader Gavin Clark.

UOIT was also the first vehicle in Group B to pass safety tech inspection and the first to test a vehicle on the dyno. Their vehicle was the fourth full-electric vehicle to perform dyno testing at EPA’s NFVEL facilities.

“We spent one whole day charging our vehicle and then performed a battery depletion test. The result was a total of 233 miles on a single charge. To do this we were on the dyno for nine hours using a variety of urban dyno drive schedules (UDDS), highway drive and steady state cycles,” said Clark.

Other teams, like Rose-Hulman, have utilized dyno testing to refine custom transmission shift maps in their vehicle.

“We have been using the UDDS, highway fuel efficient tests, and FU505 cycles to refine our custom automatic transmission shift maps,” said Rose Hulman’s Faculty Advisor Zac Chambers.  “Our results have been very insightful – being able to test in a controlled environment with no ‘runway’ restrictions is a tremendous opportunity.”

Before the Spring Workshop draws to a close, all remaining teams will have their shot at dyno testing. The University of Victoria, Embry-Riddle, and North Carolina State have already begun dyno testing and are excited to analyze the data.

“The dyno facility at the EPA NVFEL is mindboggling,” said Chambers. “We are still overwhelmed that we got to test our vehicle at the location where all vehicle fuel economy and emissions numbers are validated!  This was an experience our students will never forget.”

Check out the slideshow below to see photos of the Group B teams in action!

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Media Members Get to Ride Shotgun at Green Ride & Drive

March 15, 2011 in EcoCAR News by ggguest | No comments

Since the early stages of competition, public interest in the innovative vehicles designed and built by the EcoCAR teams has surged.  At the EcoCAR “Green Ride & Drive” event yesterday, hosted at the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory (NVFEL), the media was invited to interact with sponsors and students to see just how well the teams have taken performance and consumer appeal into account in their advanced technology vehicles.

Student engineers and Outreach Coordinators spoke to the media about the aspects of their vehicles that make them appealing to consumers, as well as the technical details of their vehicles’ architectures. Representatives from local Michigan media outlets got a close-up look at just what makes the EcoCAR vehicles special, and rode shotgun while they went out for a spin. The media presence included the Detroit News, Automotive News, AutoWeek, Detroit Auto Scene, SAE International Magazine, Xconomy Detroit and WOSU, a PBS station in Ohio. Reporter Scott Burgess from the Detroit News was on hand and captured the essence of EcoCAR in this story.

“It’s rewarding to be able to test the emissions and control systems that we have been refining throughout Year Three of the competition,” said Penn State team co-leader, Michael Zahradnik. “We also enjoyed showing off our vehicle to the high-level sponsors involved in the program and the media attendees.”

The University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) team spent the sunshine-filled morning talking with visitors and taking them for rides in their EcoCAR. The team’s full-function electric vehicle is powered by high energy density lithium polymer cells, and is expected to have a 250 mile range on a single charge when it is complete.

“It’s nice to get the opportunity to bring our EcoCAR to EPA’s facilities and show the results of our hard work in the garage,” said UOIT team leader, Gavin Clark. “Several attendees were impressed with the vehicle’s acceleration and power, something that they hadn’t expected from a full electric vehicle.”

MS&T Team Leader Kevin Martin Show's Off the Team's Vehicle

During the afternoon, employees at EPA’s NVFEL had the opportunity to spend time with the teams and take a peek under the hoods of the advanced technology vehicles. In addition, there was time for special awards recognition to the many EPA employees that helped to facilitate the team testing over the last two weeks.

The EcoCAR Ride & Drive event allowed guests to share the students’ passion and enthusiasm, and generated even more buzz and excitement in anticipation of the competition finals in May, when all vehicles will be put to the final test!

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